Team Tourney List (1500 points)

Hi all. My bud and I are entering a tournament at the end of the month. Each entrant is a 2-player team of 1,500 points (3,000 for both armies together). Fluff is not an issue, so our team is Craftworld & Dark Eldar (that must be one MAJOR threat to the galaxy for them to team up! ).

I look at these more like powerful CC characters with retinues than as the traditional troop choice that soaks up a lot of wounds. With Reserves in a timed match setting, they can afford to trade off some ablative wounds for assault power.

TROOPS-4 (90 points)
Warrior Squad
10x Warrior
- Splinter Cannon

These guys are mostly to fill in extra points left over, but they can be good for grabbing objectives close to our table edge.

My standard config for Ravagers. I always end up needing that DL at some point.

My teammate is still refining his list, but he's planning to use reserves as well, but with a shooty slant. Units of note are 2 Farseers with Guide & Doom, 3 War Walkers with 6 Scatter Lasers, and 2 squads of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents.

Comments & questions are always welcome, and if you have a good alternative for HQ-2 and TROOPS-4 please let me know!

I am not personally a fan of mixed retinues - for me HQ slots are dedicated to either close combat or to shooting. What makes this more important to me is when you are using Incubi (which are fantastic in CC but slow) and warriors (that are fantastic at shooting and fast) that the two work against each other. If you do shoot the splinter cannons before a charge then you risk eliminatiing the target models that are in range of the assault. Sure, this setup would work for horde enemies but against marines the Incubi just do not need the target to be "thinned" to begin with.

I would say drop the 50 points of warriors and 1 Incubi (to be at 5 total) and use the remaining points to add 3 more bodies to the sniper squad.

I like - the combat drugs are optional to me in this configuration as I would use the Haemy strictly to flame targets (actually "spray" targets) and use the 6" jump in the assault phase to avoid CC. The drugs to me are mostly a defensive measure in order to give the Haemy a chance to survive a round of combat so that is why I think its "optional". I personally do like drugs on haemys but I am "twisted" that way I suppose. Try, try, try to stay out of CC!

I'm not totally sold on this guy, but he is really good about half the time for me. I think I'll need him against hordes like IG and Orks.

I think combat drugs is too much of an investment for this kind of character - inefficient in my eyes. I would drop the drugs and add 3 more bodies to each raider squad (think of it as adding 3 more wounds to the sybarite). Anything that makes a scoring unit stronger is worth it even if the 3 added warriors doesn't do much in CC.

P.S. I think if you need the drugs in order win combat then I think you are using the raider squad in the wrong way.

TROOPS-4 (90 points)
Warrior Squad
10x Warrior
- Splinter Cannon

I thought this was a sniper squad, hmmm. Perhaps with the points saved from dropping the warrior retinue you can either go to 2 cannons or 2 lances but I still think 10 men is a little weak no matter what they are shooting.

Another idea would be to use the warrior retinue points to make this a very small raider squad. 90 points plus the 25 points from the warrior retinue would give you 115 points. Those points would give you:

Here is your suicidal, drive-by, last turn objective grabber. Just keep them on board as long as you can and in the 5th turn "flat-out" them to an empty or occupied enemy objective. This unit holds better to your list in that the entire list is now mounted (mechanized) and is just perfect to put into reserves.

Not crazy for the combat drugs here either - the squads random combat drug is more than enough to give the succubus an edge in every way. I just think that the random drug you get deminishes the worth of picking one especially if you find yourself choosing a drug your squad already has.

Not crazy for the Goblet either - I just like anything (especially Tau, IG and other WS3 units) getting to hit them at 3+. My reason being that the unit isn't large enough to either dish out enough wounds to weaken the enemy totally AND the squad is still small enough that losing just 1 bike will (to shooting or CC) will cause a morale check.

So I would drop the drugs for another bike and drop the goblet for a Trophy Rack that I think the succubus will definitely need (besides being an easy thing to activate). Still, the unit will not be a "hands-down, slam dunk" CC unit and thus use them to support either tank hunting, support CC and even go "loaded transport" hunting (this they can do on their own).

HEAVY SUPPORT-1, 2 (2x 115 points)
Ravager Gunship
2x Disintegrator

I don't use the "Vect" varient ravager much any more as I tend to focus the ravager for 1 of 2 purposes - either 3 lances for tank, MC, super HQ hunting or 3 disintegrators for crowd control. I would have one of each in your list and with the 5 points to spare perhaps put a horrorfex on the 3 dissy ravager or another raider (or perhaps put scaling nets on the Incubi Raider so the Incubi can embark/disembark more easily).

Just my thoughts - just opinions.

"On a hunch, I melted them down and inhaled the fumes and read the dark eldar codex again, AND FOUND A BUNCH OF NEW RULES HIDDEN BEHIND THE OTHER WORDS..." [Gardeth on modelling & interpreting the DE Codex]

The mixed retinue is actually pretty awesome for me. I get the punch of 4 Incubi (12 PW attacks on the charge), and any wounds I take in return or from shooting can be first assigned to the Warriors. Meanwhile, I still get majority WS5. The Splinter Cannons are optional for me, but they sometimes come in handy on the turn after they exit close combat.

I've gotten a little better with the Haemonculus lately. The extra 6" move isn't enough to keep him out of assault range when he's using a flamer template, but he's great for taking a cheap shot at a particularly tough unit right before someone else charges them. So what I've done is take the combat drugs off of him and used them for a trophy rack on the Dracon and extra weapons & a sybarite with poisoned blades for the foot-slogging Warriors.

Goblet of Spite has been fixed in the latest FAQ. Check out this topic for details (pages 2 & 3 are where we actually figured out what it means). My Reavers now drink deep the hatred while their victims feel only anguish!

Combat Drugs... I know they're expensive and they replace random squad drugs, but I have realized the need for re-rolling misses if I am to have dependable close combat characters. Nothing worse than charging with such fragile units just to have my Agoniser/Punisher miss all hits! With my characters being dependable, there is less need to wait before getting into close combat, so small units are fine. I have play-tested these small units in about 10 games so far, and they are surprisingly effective. Coming in from reserve on Raiders assures they will normally get into assault without taking a single wound. They are still vulnerable after they consolidate, but I typically go for multiple combats where possible. There's also the fact that Eldar can be wiping any unengaged squads off the board with their massive number of accurate shots. And there is one other factor involved...

The tournament matches are going to be timed (an hour, I think). I've been told most games don't go past 3 or 4 turns. That should give my opposition minimal opportunity to deal with all the fast killy units swarming him on turns 2 and 3, especially if our team gets to go second.